


Poor Unfortunate Souls

by DoreyS (DoreyG)



Category: Blake's 7, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Politics, Suspected or Confirmed Traitor Forced To Marry Spouse Who'll Monitor Them For Further Treachery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25030441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyS
Summary: “You were sent to spy on me, weren’t you?”
Relationships: Sheev Palpatine/Servalan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Poor Unfortunate Souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisbluespirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/gifts).



“You were sent to spy on me, weren’t you?”

It is, to say the least, an unexpected volly after several weeks of dancing around the subject. She stares at him for a long moment, takes a languid gulp of wine as she figures out what to say next.

“Sheev, darling, I don’t know _what_ you mean,” she purrs, lowering her glass and fixing him with her most practiced smile. Judging by the faint, almost imperceptible twitch of his face the dart of his _unfortunate_ first name has cheerfully hit home. “I know that this marriage isn’t what either of us would’ve chosen, but I would never stoop to spying on you.”

“Come, my dear, you can drop the pretence,” Palpatine says, in a tone of jocular familiarity. Honestly, she doesn’t know how he gets away with it. His mouth smiles, but his eyes remain frankly sharklike. “There was obviously some kind of deal involved, which was the only reason why you agreed to this. Let me see… You spy on me, and prove that I’m secretly evil and unfit to be leading the republic, and all of your many crimes get wiped away?”

“Of course not! Why would you think that was the case?” She gives him a sugary smile. She knows a lot about sharks herself, truth be told. “I wasn’t married to you so I could spy on you, I was married to you so you could redeem me.”

He arches a sceptical eyebrow. It’s surprisingly effective. “Really?”

“Oh, darling, you know all about my crimes.” She flutters her eyelashes at him, a gesture that has brought many people to their knees but that seems - by his expression - to give him a mild case of toothache. “Supreme Commander of the Terran Federation, President of the Terran Federation, fugitive commissioner under a fake name, power hungry despot, mass murderer, chronic backstabber… All of that _obviously_ regrettable business. I expressed a desire to reform, they thought that I needed a strong hand and now we’re here.”

“With you spying on me,” Palpatine says, very plainly. Honestly, he's like a dog with a bone. Worry worry worry, and obviously with the impression that it's an entirely admirable trait instead of astonishingly annoying. “There’s really no point in not admitting it.”

“I am not spying on you,” she lies, with some aplomb. She’s good at lying, it’s perhaps the foremost of her many talents. “I am just sitting here, perfectly innocently, looking to be redeemed. Really, Sheev, I wish you would stop accusing me of things. I’m starting to feel hurt.”

“I think that you’re rather hard to hurt, my lady Servalan,” Palpatine says rather bluntly. Which, _really_. “Come, let us dispense with this charade. What if I said that I had concrete evidence that you’ve been keeping an eye on me?”

“I would say that concrete is remarkably easy to dissolve, when you put your mind to it.” She gives her most charming smile, very deliberately crosses her legs. “But do go on.”

Palpatine stares at her legs for a long few moments, not in a distracted way but in the way that a scientist would examine some kind of fascinating bug. When he glances up at her again, his expression is all business. “You insist upon attending all my meetings. When I explicitly bar you from them, you somehow find a way to wander through the room anyway.”

“Can a wife not take an interest in her husband’s work?” She retorts smoothly, raising a slightly chiding eyebrow.

“I have frequently noticed my desk to be in a state of disarray, one which I most certainly have not left it in. My papers are everywhere, my private correspondence has been rifled through and everything I own has seemingly been examined with a fine toothed comb.” He leans forward, fixes her with a rather intense look. “More than that, my drawers have often been tried and sometimes left open as if somebody has been going through them. The only person who would’ve had the access, and I suspect the inclination, is you.”

She considers this for a second, keeping her very politest society smile plastered upon her face. “Can a wife not tidy her husband’s things, when he seems far too busy to do so?”

“Tidy-?” Palpatine starts incredulously, and then gathers himself. Gives her a mirror of her own expression, rather excellently done she must admit, as he sits back in his own chair. “Furthermore, and I _really_ wish you hadn’t forced me to this point, I have noticed certain writings of your own. Writings of a, shall we say, suspicious nature.”

“Sheev, _really_.” She mock gasps, takes a rather definite pleasure in the way his left eye is definitely starting to twitch. “You’ve been through my things?”

There’s a long moment of silence. Palpatine stares at her, disbelievingly, for a long moment and then huffs out a heavy sigh. “The suspicious writings that I speak of are a record of my every movement, a record that explicitly acknowledges that you’ve been spying on me since our wedding day.”

She considers, yet again. Taps her fingers against her glass, purses her lips, watches his largely unreadable face… And then smiles, yet again. “Can’t a wife write spy fiction about her darling husband?”

“You are the most unique person that I’ve ever met,” Palpatine says flatly, obviously not meaning the words as any kind of compliment, and braces his hands on the table in front of him. “Look, my dear, I’m not angry about all this. In fact, I rather admire your ingenuity and your problem solving skill. I just want you to admit what you’ve been doing.”

“I’m glad you’re not angry about it, because there’s nothing to get angry about and men who get angry about nothing are the worst kind of brutes,” she purrs, and allows her smile to stray slightly into a smirk. He deserves a little reward for not just putting his head in his hands and giving up, after all. “I still refuse to admit anything, though. I am perfectly innocent in every way, and I will not slander myself to make you feel better.”

“I don’t think you’ve been innocent your entire life,” Palpatine says, which she’s going to take as a compliment. “Look, my dear. We both know the truth. I know that you’ve been spying on me, you know that you’ve been spying on me. You were recruited, largely against your will, to discover if I was actually a Sith lord determined to cause the downfall of the Jedi and enforce my own vision of the universe on the largely innocent population.”

“What a fascinating story that you’ve come up with!” She trills, and leans in to give him a confidential look that has had _several_ men spilling their entire life story in a desperate rush. “Tell me, _are_ you a Sith lord determined to do pretty much every terrible thing in the book?”

“Yes,” Palpatine says, finally allowing a little frustration to creep into his usually ever so neutral voice. “Of course.”

...Well.

“My, if I’d known it was that easy I would’ve just asked you at the wedding reception,” she says, easily hiding how taken aback she is, and very slowly leans forward to place her mostly empty glass of wine on the desk. “Are you going to attempt to murder me now, or something equally tiresome?”

“No. Not at the moment, at least,” Palpatine reassures her. Although it’s not much of a reassurance, the man is a singularly unsettling presence. “It would be rather foolish of me, to waste somebody such as yourself. And I do not make a habit of being foolish.”

“You’re being foolish right now,” she informs him, deciding that - whether she survives or gets immediately cut down by one of those charming laser swords - she might as well be herself now that the curtain has been drawn back. “Why on earth would you tell a known spy that information? Aren’t you at all worried that I’m immediately going to run off to the jedi council, and tell them literally everything I know?”

“Not especially,” Palpatine says, and leans forward before she can take offence and go marching off to aid the good guys anyway. _Ugh_ , what a distasteful thought. “Tell me, my Lady Servalan, are you actually interested in redeeming yourself and retiring to a peaceful backwater in the middle of nowhere?”

“Well, if we’re being honest…” She purses her lips, thinks for a moment and then gives a genuine laugh. Judging by the way he jerks back a little, he wasn’t at all expecting the sound. “Not especially. I don’t think that I really did anything wrong, and I also don’t think that I’m the kind of woman meant for a peaceful retirement. What on earth would I do? Take up gardening, or something equally dull? No, I’m meant for the thick of things. Changing my galaxy, my universe, instead of dully allowing myself to be changed.”

“The Jedi council will force you into retirement, even if you do everything that they’ve asked,” Palpatine tells her, and she somehow gets the feeling that the man is being perfectly honest. “They don’t have anywhere near as much power as they think they do, but they can still be an entirely troublesome force. You’ll hand me over, the galaxy - my galaxy - will be saved and before you blink you’ll be learning to grow roses in a tiresomely twee cottage.”

 _Ugh_.

“What an incredibly depressing thought,” she murmurs, and swipes up her discarded glass to gulp down the last dregs of wine. It’s not much, but she’ll take any alcohol she can get at this rather upsetting juncture. “How on earth do I avoid this awful fate?”

“By, if you are inclined, accepting my counterproposal,” Palpatine says smoothly, and leans in to fix her with a rather deliberate look. The shark yet again, the brutal hunter who you can’t help but admire. “I’m not suggesting we be co-rulers, I think that we’d kill each other within the year, but that doesn’t stop us from entering into a mutually beneficial arrangement. I scratch your back, you scratch mine, we both end up happy and tranquil cottages with rose gardens play no part in the rest of our lives.”

“A tempting thought,” she says, and matches his look with her own. There are two predators in this room, after all, and she knows very well which one is the apex. “Go on.”

“We remain married, as a purely business arrangement,” Palpatine continues, hardly cowed. Excellent, the arrogant ones are always the easiest to bring to their knees. “I keep pretending that I am working to redeem you, you keep pretending that you are investigating me and my sins. I get closer to the senate, you get closer to the Jedi. We keep an eye on all possible enemies, and thus will know thoroughly when the iron is hot and we’re ready to strike. We destroy the senate, we destroy the Jedi and we get everything we ever wanted. I will become the unquestioned emperor of this galaxy, you will get the money and ships to go back to your own galaxy and make them sorry that they ever cast you out. We form an alliance.”

“And maintain that alliance for as long as it’s convenient to both of us?” She asks, and bites back a smile as he gives a charming nod. Honestly, she could almost grow to _like_ this man. “An interesting thought, in many ways. But how do I know that you won’t immediately stab me in the back?”

“The same way that I know that you won’t stab me in the back,” Palpatine says smoothly, and gives her a smirk as she arches her eyebrow in question. “We don’t. All we have is the knowledge that we’re worse off apart, and that we could get everything we want if we tolerate each other’s presence for just a little longer.”

“A mutually beneficial hatred,” she muses. And then, decided, gives him one of her genuine smiles. The kind with all of her teeth clearly on display. “Fair enough. I’ve entered into worse arrangements, after all.”

He smiles at her, she laughs. They shake hands over the table, and she half fancies that she feels the universe quaver around them at the sight.


End file.
